


If You Need Me...

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: United We. [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 20:42:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15518181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: What’s left of the Avengers stays in Wakanda trying their best to put the universe back together, and Steve? He trains and rebuilds and tries not to think about the one question still unanswered.Where is Earth’s Best Defender now?





	If You Need Me...

They chatter in Xhosa at his back as the unforgiving Wakandan sun beats against the back of his neck. M’Baku had said that they liked him, but he’s not quite sure as they tend to give him a wide breadth. He doesn’t mind, as he methodically beats the hammer down on the nails, putting together roofs and walls in the new houses. Rebuilding the homes of people who might never be coming back. When Okoye had come to them to mention the reparations, he’d been the first one to jump at the chance to do something with his hands. More than that, to build rather than destroy. 

He’d done enough destruction now to last him a lifetime. 

None of the others had been quite ready to move on to a new project, and sometimes it feels as though they resent him for it. He’s caught Rhodey’s eyes more than once, dark and storming from across the kitchen island, when he comes in sweaty and as-yet-to-fade sunburned with M’Baku or some other guardian chattering contentedly at his side. He tries to avoid his eyes, mostly, tries to quell the anguish in his chest as he sees one half of that pair without the other. It seems so wrong, to have Rhodes poring over documents and schematics and videos of battles with Bruce by his side and not who should be. Whom they all expect. There are days when Rhodey would stop, cut himself in the middle of his sentence, blink, and realize that the person sitting next to him is not who he thought he was. 

So Steve keeps his distance, mostly. Natasha continues on her usual business. Going in and out of the palace in search of one lead or another. Rhodey and Bruce continue to pour over schematics and notes, more seem to arrive by the day, and he tries not to think about where they’re coming from. He’d only made the mistake to approach them once, to ask, and had received a sigh from Bruce and a dark glare from Rhodey. Clearly, their slight camaraderie against Ross had evaporated as soon as Tony’s absence become more a bad omen than a worry. 

  
  


“They’re Tony’s,” Rhodes had said without taking his eyes from the screen in front of him when he’d made the mistake of asking where all the crates with files kept coming from. “He’s been collecting data for years. There was nowhere else where we thought we could start.”

“Who is this Stark guy anyway?” The raccoon asks, and Steve always sighs deeply in his mind when he thinks about it . If his ma could see him now. Talking with robotically enhanced rodents. 

“He was— _ is _ ,” Bruce shoots Rhodes an apologetic look. “He  _ is _ our friend.”

”He’s my brother,” Rhodes says stiffly. He tosses the scribbled on paper on his hands onto a pile on the floor. “He’s been looking for alien threats for years, ever since we first came into contact with actual aliens back in 2012, what we called the Battle of New York. He— he thought that something bigger had to be coming, it was too easy, he used to say.”

“That was anything but easy,” Bruce murmurs as he crosses yet another file with a red mark. 

“Sure, for us,” Rhodes says. He passes a holoscreen over to Rocket who makes an interested noise. “We won, yeah, but he always thought that couldn’t be it. He went into this wormhole, right, trying to stop the invasion. Whatever he saw back then, out there when he was on his own,” Steve had had to bite his lip bloody to keep from making a noise. He  _ knew _ damn well how much they had failed him. “It changed him. People called him paranoid, crazy, but he still planned.”

“I heard about that,” Rocket says once Rhodey makes no sign of continuing. “That attack on Terra. Spread like wildfire out there, they do love their gossip; they said something about the monkeys defeating Thanos’s emissary. Everyone thought it had to be a sign, ya know, that things were turning. That.. maybe there was someone out there who could save the galaxy, or whatever.” Rocket shook his head and made a sound of disgust, “Thanos obliterated half of Rex-23 the next day. To prove a point, I guess.”

“Thanos was behind the attack in New York?” Steve asks, unable to keep silent. He had heard the stories, of course, a part of him had believed them to be true. Had had enough rambling conversations with Tony to know what the man thought. Still. Rhodes makes a derisive noise and shakes his head, Bruce sighs. 

“Of course he was,” Rocket says as though this is something everyone should know. “Hey, what’s this?” He shows Rhodey a holoscreen; big alien ships floating in space, a few dozens by the look of them, and something floating in their direction. 

“I —I don’t know,” Rhodey says, closing in around the screen. Bruce makes an interested noise and moves to get a better angle. Steve is rooted on the spot, looking at that holoscreen, knowing without a shadow of a doubt even though Tony had never trusted him with the knowledge, what it is.

“New York,” Steve manages to choke out. He moves closer, points his fingers to the dot moving away from the focus and towards the ships in the distance, “that’s—that’s the nuke. This is what Tony saw.”

Rocket whistles lowly and falls back on his seat. Rhodey excuses himself from the room, having more trouble than usual in his braces, while Bruce pushes away from the holoscreen and back to the files. 

“No wonder the guy went batshit crazy,” Rocket says after a moment. Bruce’s head snaps up, and the raccoon shrugs. “Those are the Chitauri, right? I recognize those ships. Not particularly smart, but damn are they vicious. They like pain, I guess, the bloodier the better for them. And that’s not even half as bad as what Thanos could have sent. Clearly.” They lapse into silence as that reality sinks in. 

Steve had excused himself, hands balled into fists, as he made his way to his room. Faintly, cursed serum, he’d heard Rocket ask “So what happened to all his counter plans?” He’d decided to keep building rather than sleep; it would have been a lost cause anyway. 

  
  


So now he builds. It keeps him from feeling too useless. Okoye and shuri had graciously allowed him to train with their new warriors. So he does that, most days, trying to keep up with them and pretend like half of them are far too young to be training as is. They’re loyal and they’re fierce, but his heart seizes every time he sees them playing catch or chasing each other when they have a spare moment. All of them have lost  _ somebody _ and that reminder sometimes feels like too much to withstand. 

like most things in his life recently, the news catch him off guard. On a rare occasion where he’s still at the palace by midday, having lunch while he goes over some files Bruce and Rhodes had left on the counter. The Wakanda-wide alarm goes off, covering everything in a hazy blue light, as Okoye’s voice comes through the speakers and the komoyo beads on his wrist. 

“Ship incoming. Threat imminent. Nomad, Widow, War Machine and Rocket, your presence is requested at the Northeastern Palace entrance,” she says perfunctorily. Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, all the time he allows himself before he’s running down to Shuri’s lab. His suit is stored inside as safekeeping though he’s refused to allow the princess to tinker with it. Part of it is guilt, she already has enough in her plate with the reparations, but the biggest part is something he doesn’t allow himself to voice but knows is plain to anyone who knows him well. Widow has given him enough knowing looks to realize that at the very least she knows. It feels wrong, ultimately, for anyone to touch the suit when its creator is gone. 

Even when he’d taken the name of Nomad he had been unable to let go of the thing. He knows the tracker is still in there; it had been stupid, Sam and Wanda had told him, to keep the beacon on him. They had thought Tony would use it in a heartbeat to get to him. Steve had bit his lip and kept quite, unwilling to start an argument, but knowing the truth deep in his core. Tony had never, ever meant him harm. Not when he was… all right. Not when he wasn’t consumed with betrayal and grief, and even then he had never actually meant to hurt Steve. So he’d just torn the parts of the suit that in any way called attention to the place of his birth, but the rest of it had still been a connection. Dropping the title had never, in his mind, meant he had stopped knowing where home was. With whom. 

Rhodes is already standing at attention in the suit outside the palace borders when he gets there; Okoye, Widow, and Rocket as well as Shuri with her Panther Blasters and two more members of the Dora are waiting for him in a hovercraft. 

“What do we got?” He asks, shield at the ready. He refuses to think on the world weariness on his shoulders that he can’t seem to shake off. He has no right to feel tired, defeated, when there is still so much to do. 

“Tony Stark’s satellites have been connected to our servers thanks to his FRIDAY program,” Shuri says, checking something on her Beads. “They have a longer length of development, they have been programmed to pick up objects at a farther distance than ours so we’ve been monitoring this ship for a couple days. It’s trajectory seems steady in our direction, but it wasn't until this morning where it became more hurried. We—“Okoye clears her throat loudly and Shuri sighs. “I do not think it is hostile but—“

“But we will take no chances, given the circumstances,” The general interrupts. Shuri shoots her a look but says nothing. Steve is inclined to agree with the general in this front. They can take no risks, not when they have already lost so much. 

“There,” Shuri says as she points at the sky. On the far horizon, something breaks through the atmosphere hurling towards them. Steve squints, can barely see the glint of metal, before Shuri shouts her directive at them and they start running in the general direction of the ship’s landing. 

They’re still at a fair distance away from the point of arrival when they hear the unmistakable sound of a heavy object crashing onto he ground. The sonic wave from it sends a cloud of debris around them as they get closer. The hovercraft stops, and Okoye shouts a directive to the two other Dora to stay with the princess. Steve makes eye contact with Widow and she nods, her batons ready as she moves closer to Shuri. Rhodey grabs him and Okoye, perhaps a little too roughly though Steve says nothing, and Rocket starts his jet pack. 

“There!” Okoye shouts. 

Once the ship is in sight, Rhodes puts them down, and they fan out around the fallen craft. It looks like its been put through hell, dents and scratches making it look worse for wear, but they are all unwilling to risk it.

“Shall we destroy it?” Rhodes asks, repulsors whirring up. Even through the voice modulator, Steve hears the iciness in his voice. The contrast to the Rhodey from Before is marked. 

“For the sake of what is left of Wakanda—“Okoye begins, but is interrupted by the sound of Rocket dropping to his feet.

“Wait!” He shouts. Rocket takes one look at it and starts running straight for the as yet to open front gate. 

“Raccoon,” Okoye hisses. 

“They’re my friends!” Rocket growls back. Anguish and protectiveness are clear in his voice. 

“What guarantee do we have—“Okoye begins again, but is interrupted. 

Shuri pops up from behind them, blasters at the ready, with Natasha in tow. The other two Doras are nowhere in sight, but Steve can feel their presence a little further back. He meets Widow’s gaze, and she gives him her signature smirk. Yeah, he was an idiot thinking he could keep either one of them away. Okoye looks at him, and he knows they both feel the same. 

“Let them through,” the princess says, voice commanding. 

“Princess—“

Just then, the front gate of the ship opens. Steve squints, catches the sight of blue skin looking synthetic like Vision’s, and next to it —

His brain stops. The breath staggers in his lungs and he’s stumbling forward before he can even begin to comprehend what he’s seeing. Natasha says something behind him, Rhodey curses and the sound of the opening suit comes from beside him, but Steve can’t concentrate because—

Tony stumbles down the opened ramp, falling to one knee and Steve is there. Taking the blue lady from him, passing her over to whoever gets close, before he has his arms wrapped around the other man.  _ Wet _ ,  _ thin, cold _ , his brain picks up sensations faster than it can process. Tony falls limply into his arms, his whole body shaking, as he mutters faintly. 

“Nebula,” Steve catches. “Help her. Please—“

“We got her,” Rhodes says. Steve turns slightly, sees Nat with his arms around the blue lady, and then focuses back on the man in his arms.  _ He’s too thin,  _ he thinks nonsensically. “You’re safe. We got you, Tony.”

“Tony,” the name slips out of his mouth. Fear, reverence,  _ relief _ all packed up into four letters. His arms tighten around the other man when he shifts, leans his head back to look into Steve’s eyes, and  _ there _ … there it is. The recognition in his eyes, something like relief clouding his eyes before they roll into the back of his head and he goes limp on his arms. Steve tightens his hold, drops his head so his lips are pressed against Tony’s sweaty hair, “I got you. I got you, Tones. I got you.”

“Steve,” Rhodes says god knows how long afterward. It’s the use of his actual name, unlike the Rogers or Captain Rhodes has been using lately, that snaps him out of his reverie. There’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and he looks up. “We have to get him back to the palace. He needs help.” Steve opens his mouth to refute it, to beg for just one more second, and Rhodes makes an impatient noise. “He’s fucking bleeding out, Rogers. Snap out of it, soldier.”

Steve glances down, pulls a hand away from where he’s gripping Tony, and sees it covered in crimson. A ringing starts in his ears and he frantically leans down to put his ear to Tony’s face to hear the soft little puffs of air he’s taking. Still breathing, but the bleeding is concerning. He looks up and notices it’s just him, Rhodes and Natasha left. Nat has moved closer, has tears running down her face as her shaking hand reaches out and touches Tony’s hair. 

“Take Nat,” Steve croaks out. He rises to his feet, cradles Tony against his chest as he stands, and motions with his head in the direction of the palace. Rhodes looks at him for a second before he nods and Steve is gone. 

He keeps his lips to Tony’s hair as he runs towards the palace. 

_ I got you, Tony. . _


End file.
